To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else. - Emily Dickinson.
Do you remember the first time you said, “When I was young,” only to realize you were talking about a memory from when you were 18 years old? That startling moment when you think, I am now the person who calls that time "young”. Trying to figure out where the time went and how it was spent.
Never happened to you?
Good, hit me up, so I can learn a few coaching tricks from you.
All jokes aside. Time often feels like something to be figured out, something we could plan better, use better, or generally just be better at. And yet, there never seems to be enough of it. Have you heard the quote, “Even Beyoncé has 24 hours in a day”? Well, here is a trick that brings you closer to superstar-level time management.
And it starts from the end. It starts with a no.
But before we get there, a quick detour into economics. Don’t worry! No calculations, just theory.
In microeconomics, there is a concept called opportunity cost. It refers to the value of the best potential benefit you give up when making a choice. Simply put: if you have 2 euros and you decide to buy apples, you can’t spend that money on bananas. Not eating the bananas? That is the opportunity cost. Something you didn’t get because you chose something else.
Every day is full of choices and opportunity costs. As I chose to write this article, I chose not to do something else, like take a walk or pet a dog. Why did I choose it?
In coaching, there is often a magic moment, which starts with a long pause and is followed by an answer that puts everything into perspective. The question – Why is this important to you? Why is your job important? Why is your biggest vision or goal important? Why do you do the things you do? I chose to write the blog article because writing about the things I love brings me a sense of achievement and genuine joy.
In everyday life, things get blurry, time moves faster, and making meaningful decisions becomes harder. So here is the secret, the most effective productivity hack: figuring out what is truly important to you and saying no to everything that doesn’t align with it.
The reason any successful person seems to have more hours in the day is, first, probably because they worked incredibly hard for it, and second, because they figured out what is important to them and prioritized it as if their life depended on it.
As it usually tends to be, most things are easier said than done. So here is a question to help you out next time, when you are about to agree with something:
If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to? Is it time, money, bananas, or something else?
And a bonus – why is it important to me?
Till the next no’s,
Anna Leena
AL Coaching
